Facebook, the biggest social media marketing platform online, has disabled its ‘Send an Update’ feature. The feature allowed page owners to send bulk updates to the users who had ‘Liked’ the page. The feature also enabled marketers to target fans based on age, location and gender demographics. However, these messages frequently went unseen as they were delivered in the ‘Other’ folder of inbox, which is rarely opened by users.
The ‘Other’ folder, a sub-tab of the primary inbox, essentially acts like a spam folder. Messages coming from unknown people and events to which users have not RSVP’d are collected in this folder. This means that time and effort invested by a marketer in composing updates that end up in ‘Other’ folder are likely to be wasted. The main reason behind taking the decision of removing the feature was that it was not really offering value to marketers.
The move is likely to be useful for both the site as well as marketers. Getting rid of ineffective features is the best way to ensure that page owners focus on value building tools. This is essential to keep administrators from getting frustrated and shifting their advertising dollars to other platforms.
Currently, posting updates on ones wall is the best method of ensuring that the message reaches target users as it will be visible to them in their news feeds. Targeted sponsored stories and ads are other options for getting your message across to potential customers. Facebook is also testing a new feature that will enable users and page owners to communicate privately.